Henry Kane – Age of the Idiot (Review)

Henry Kane is a one-man deathgrind/crust band from Sweden, and this is his second album.

I do enjoy Henry Kane’s work. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out Den Förstörda Människans Rike and the split with Prolefeed. Brought to us by the man-of-a-million-bands Jonny Pettersson, (Ashcloud, Gods Forsaken, Heads for the Dead, Just Before Dawn, Ursinne, Wombbath, and many others), Age of the Idiot is a brutally sublime piece of extremity.

Smashing together grindcore, death metal, and crust, Henry Kane’s music is violent, filthy, and utterly destructive. This is unfriendly music that rages and tears through its playing time with the intensity of a crazed killer. Powered by crust energy, this is pummelling deathgrind played with skill and character.

On this new album there has been a development in the music’s style, however; the core remains intact, but now it has been augmented with occasional atmospheric elements and doom workouts. I should stress, however, that these newer parts do not inform the bulk of the delivery, and Age of the Idiot remains violently explosive for the majority of the record’s 34-minute playing time.

Savagely brutal and crushingly heavy, the album is a ferocious collection of vicious tracks that occasionally allow more mood-driven aspects to come to the fore. These latter elements manifest sparingly, used to enhance rather than dominate the songs, if they are used at all. A track like Veil of Hatred is a good example, where blackened keyboards make an appearance, briefly enriching the song’s grinding fury. The title track makes greater use of this newer side of the band, with keyboards and dark melodies making for a very well-rounded song. I also particularly like By the Virtue of Hate, for similar reasons.

Most of the songs are short and merciless, expertly dealing out violence and pain with no remorse. There are some longer songs, such as the aforementioned title track, but the longest is the 4-minute Entrenched in Nihilism. Boasting guest vocals from the singer of Soothsayer, this is the song where the music’s atmospheric doom crust tendencies reach their apogee.

On Age of the Idiot Henry Kane’s music has been refined and upgraded. Building on the considerable raw power of the band’s past strengths, Age of the Idiot is an album of lethal potency.

Very highly recommended indeed.